03/29/2017
A Palestinian-led call for action:
We call for actions across the globe to mark April 17: Palestinian Prisoners’ Day and the 40 day memorial of Basel Al-Araj’s murder. On this day, we continue to demand an end to the Palestinian Authority’s security coordination with Israel. We call on Palestinian communities everywhere to use this moment as a first step in reorganising our communities and affirming our unwavering will for return, freedom and dignity.
Palestinians across historic Palestine and in exile, as well as international solidarity activists, have protested the assassination of Basel Al-Araj, a well-known activist and intellectual, by the Israeli occupation army. Ongoing protests are directed at the Palestinian Authority (PA) precisely for their ongoing collaboration with the Zionist regime, which led to Basel’s death.
Protestors in Ramallah, including the martyr Basel’s father, were attacked by the US-trained and Israel-armed police forces of the PA. As Siham Al-Araj, Basel’s mother stated: “The PA does not want people who say no; it wants people who submit to and accept the oppression we live under.”
Basel was one of six activists arrested by the PA in March 2016. After six months of being subjected to torture while being held without trial, the activists carried out a hunger strike until their release. Five of the activists were immediately arrested by the Israeli occupation, joining around seven thousand other Palestinian political prisoners in Israel’s jails. They continue to be held under administrative detention, without charge or trial. Basel, however, went into hiding for six months. On March 6, dozens of Israeli forces raided Basel’s hideout in Al-Bireh, in close proximity to the PA’s headquarters, and assassinated him after a two hour standoff.
Our people have struggled for too long for us to stand idle while repressive leaders barter our oppression and dispossession for their personal gain. For a century we have fought for freedom from colonialism; for seventy years we have fought for liberation and return in the face of our expulsion and the creation of a racist colonial regime in our homeland. For fifty years we have resisted that regime’s expansion. We are approaching thirty years since the Oslo accords that transformed what remained of our land into open air prisons administered by unrepresentative PA officials who have hired themselves out to be our colonisers’ first line of defense.
It was Basel’s part in this fight that made him a target, and it is this that makes his assassination an assault on all those who strive for freedom and dignity. Basel embodied the revolutionary politics for which he fought. His refusal to surrender to the colonial regime, one that mirrored countless others who lost their life for the cause of freedom and justice, only renews our collective determination to struggle for liberation and return.
The Oslo Regime does not represent us. Now is the time for us to come together and rebuild our collective struggle for the liberation of all of Palestine.
No to security coordination with colonial regimes! Yes to people’s struggles!
We will not allow the blood of our martyred sisters and brothers to be shed in vain!
Freedom for all political prisoners! Freedom for Palestine!
(We want to be clear that these actions are not led by any political faction or any particular organization. We represent all sections of the Palestinian people who want to take a stance and resist the oppression of our people in all its forms.
